By Ange Aboa and Joe Bavier
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Former rebels now serving in Ivory Coast's army erected barricades and blocked streets outside barracks across the country on Tuesday in protest over unpaid salaries and bonuses, military sources and witnesses said.
The defence minister said the government would meet some demands. But in Bouake, the country's second town and former stronghold of the New Forces rebellion, soldiers entered state television and radio to try to broadcast a message rejecting the offer but were unable to do so as staff fled.
Ivory Coast, the world's number one cocoa producer, is still recovering from a decade of political turmoil and a 2011 civil war that saw the French- and U.N.-backed rebels topple President Laurent Gbagbo after his refusal to accept defeat in elections.
Demonstrations broke out at military bases in the commercial capital Abidjan, Bouake as well as in Korhogo, Odienne, Bondoukou and Daloa, a hub of the country's cocoa industry.
The protests, which involved several thousand soldiers, were initially peaceful. But they intensified after Defence Minister Paul Koffi Koffi said the government would cede to some demands and urged soldiers to return to barracks.
Cocoa buyers in Daloa said warehouses closed around midday due to the unrest.
"There were volleys of gunfire and the soldiers are deploying in the city centre," said a Daloa resident, adding that soldiers had seized government vehicles and were patrolling the city. "It's creating panic."
Gunfire was also heard in Korhogo in the late afternoon, a town resident said.
Some of the soldiers were demanding government salaries they stopped receiving when they defected to the New Forces.
Others, who joined after the rebellion began in 2002, want promotions, benefits and payment of a 5 million CFA franc (6,110 pounds) bonus they say each was promised three years ago while fighting in support of current President Alassane Ouattara.
Koffi Koffi said the government had agreed to pay overdue travel stipends and housing allowances and to set aside money for soldiers' healthcare.
He said he would meet a delegation of soldiers to look for "a definitive solution" to demands for back wages.
Ouattara, who defeated Gbagbo in a run-off vote in 2010, has overseen a rapid revival of French-speaking West Africa's largest economy. But rights groups have criticised him for not doing enough to heal deep political and ethnic divisions.
Gbagbo is awaiting trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, charged with crimes against humanity.
(Editing by David Lewis and Alison Williams)
